Former University of St. Francis volleyball player Jeana (Carrico) Pekol enters her seventh season as Cara Currier's right hand on the Saints' coaching staff.

Pekol played her senior season at USF and was named to the All-Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference team that year (1998). She also was recognized twice as the league's player of the week.

Before transferring to USF, Pekol competed at the University of Missouri-St. Louis her freshman year and at NCAA Division I Northeastern Illinois University the following two seasons.

While at UMSL, Pekol was voted as the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association freshman of the year. She gained honors at Northeastern, as well, making the All-Mid-Continent Conference team.

Pekol, a member of the Kappa Delta Phi International Honor Society, also was the vice president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Board while at Northeastern.

Pekol's coaching background includes working at St. Francis' All-American Camp and both the Peru Park District and La Salle-Peru High School summer camps. She also coached the Illinois Valley Volley Power club team.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in elementary education from USF in 1999, Pekol went on to get her master's in educational leadership from Aurora University in 2004.

In addition to coaching at USF, Pekol serves as an assistant principal at Minooka Junior High. She and her husband Scott, a former USF basketball player, live in Joliet with their twin sons Zach and Luke, who celebrated their fourth birthdays in May.